Depends. As far as I can tell there's two type of standard plank - passive and active. Basically passive is what most people do and try to hold their position and tough it out for an extended time. Active is my preference, which is to squeeze your core, glutes etc as hard as you can for a shorter period.

Good news - I saw the doctor today - My shoulder damage is not rotator cuff but something simpler that may be fixed by physiotherapy. It does now seem to be a little better. One the good news front the diet is all but done. Three and a half stone lost. My waist is five inches smaller and I have so much more energy - Today I was late for the doctors so I walked and ran the 1.6 miles (auto route verified) in 18 minutes. Then ran and fast strolled back in 16 minutes. I now fancy taking up running something I haven't done for 35 years.

I did 2.5 min passive- prob could have kept going if I'd forced myself.

Down to 15 sec between sets of 10 push ups. Tried a 4th set and failed on 5

Really keen to get to >30 pushups continuous, >40 ideally

Still on 5 chin ups, but not made any sort of concerted effort to progress. Managed a single pull up

It's been hard to keep any sort of focus on non-cycling exercise as I've upped my cycling volume/intensity this past month.

I have 2 weeks from the end of that training block until the club weekend away. I definitely gambled with overdoing it this training block so inclined to err on the side of recovery- if I lose a bit a bit more fitness than I necessarily need to then so be it. The weekend will still be a challenge because it's 3 days in a row reasonably big rides, which I haven't done up until now. Then I have 3 weeks until my planned ride to and from aviemore (which will probably be ~500 miles in the space of a week). After that, I have no idea what I'm going to do- whether to use that as a springboard to train for something in Sept, or just enjoy the rest of the year cycling without anything particular in mind, and divide my time between strength (take up kettlebells etc...) and refining cycling fitness without worrying too much about progressing. I think if i recover properly, then the club weekend, followed by aviemore should give me a couple of jumps in fitness, although I'm not entirely sure how to bridge from the club weekend to aviemore. At the moment I'm thinking take it easy the following week with a 100 mile ride on the sunday, 2nd week do two midweek 1.5 hour interval rides, and a century ride that Sunday then rest up the 3rd week before setting off on the Friday...

I am fucking ravenous this week, and i want to eat carbs and sweet things- problem is I can't quite convince myself that this is a bad idea, and that it won't help my recovery (carb loading excuse... )

I have done no training during May and really need to start again tomorrow. Need to get back into the swing of things. I eventually got all the pieces delivered to make a cable pulldown in the garage, so have something new to add into the mix at some point.

My legs were a bit achy after my first run so I deferred my second effort until later today.Pleased to report that I managed to jog (without stopping) 1.53 miles in under 17 mins.I have found that my previous 1.6 mile walk/ run was a fake distance. So this run is actually my best to date.

@crimsondonkey I attempted your squat/ push up test yesterday.... disappointingly, I failed on the last set of 10 Push ups... I had made an attempt at how many push ups I could do in one go (24 yesterday) not long beforehand so perhaps I could have made it all the way if I was fresh. Anyway, resting in position to get through it I completed it in 4:20 so not even at the "acceptable" level in your original post....

Ugh.....did not feel as recovered as I would have liked on yesterday's ride, despite taking it easy all week. I felt a bit under the weather on Sat and there's a cold going around so that may have been to blame. Crashed out at 9pm last night, bit still feel wrecked today. Will take it easier than planned this week I think.